


Luminary In Love

by thepetulantpen



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, Valentine's Day, also posted on my tumblr (same username), just fluff, saimota, secret admirers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 02:06:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18228455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepetulantpen/pseuds/thepetulantpen
Summary: Shuichi needs some help with an important investigation the day before Valentine's Day.





	Luminary In Love

“Kaito?”

Kaito looks up from his desk at Shuichi with a grin that dies as soon as his eyes land on the small stack of familiar letters in his hands. 

“Uh," he swallows once, determined to keep his cool, "what are those?” 

“I was hoping you could help me figure that out. You see,” Shuichi doesn’t smile, just considers him in that factual way he does when he’s investigating, “I’ve been getting these messages from... a secret admirer, of sorts. I just can’t figure out who they are.”

Kaito is not sweating and is certainly not nervous. He’s not. As astronaut, he’s got nerves of steel and _definitely_ isn’t intimidated by Shuichi. 

“Oh, yeah? What, uh, are you going to do?”

Shuichi tilts his head, a confused gesture unusual for him. He’s usually the one with the answers, not the one trying get answers. 

“Since I’m your sidekick, you said I should always come to you when I need help. I need more information and I think, if you helped me investigate, I could solve the mystery.” Shuichi frowns, and looks down for a second, hesitating now. “Unless, you’re busy, it can wait, it’s just... Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, you know?”

Kaito is very, _very_ well aware that Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. 

“No, no, I’ll,” his mouth twists into a caricature of his normal grin, forced to hide his lies, “of course, I’ll help.”

Shuichi smiles that smile that always gets Kaito, brighter than any star he’s ever seen. 

“I knew you’d help! Let me know if you find anything out, I’ll be in my room doing some other research.” 

There’s practically a trail of dust as Kaito runs out of the classroom with nothing more than an “mmhm” to the affirmative. 

From a desk in the back, Maki rolls her eyes at him. 

“This is cruel and unusual punishment.”

“I deserve to use my powers for evil sometimes, ok?”

...

Kaito is regretting his life choices, at the moment. How could he have been so stupid to think that Shuichi, the ultimate detective, would be content to leave a “secret admirer” a mystery?

It’s a miracle that he hasn’t figured it out already, but Kaito was pretty brilliant in not getting caught. He went to great, ridiculous lengths to make sure that nobody saw him leaving the letters in Shuichi’s locker in the middle of the night. He even wore gloves to make sure there was no fingerprints and wrote with his left hand to disguise the handwriting. 

And, of course, he’s so calm and collected under pressure that Shuichi couldn’t have suspected anything when he asked about the letters. He could’ve been an actor if he wasn’t destined to go to space. 

Now that he thinks about it, this’ll probably be fine. He’ll just tell Shuichi he didn’t find anything. 

But what after that? Both he and Shuichi will be disappointed on Valentine’s Day, and, surely, Shuichi won’t ever stop investigating. Kaito supposes he’s meant to confess at some point. Maybe even tomorrow, on the day practically meant for admissions of love. 

No, he can’t do that. Shuichi is so smart, he definitely wouldn’t want something as cliché and overdone as a Valentine’s Day confession. 

He probably wouldn’t even want Kaito. He’s probably expecting someone more his speed, someone as smart as Kokichi or passionate as Kaede or kind as Kiibo. 

_Time to face it, Shuichi is out of my league._

Kaito plops down on his pillow, resolving to not move until his problems have gone away, or he’s slipped into a miraculous cryosleep. 

...

Shuichi would like, for once, to not know the answer. It would’ve been nice to keep the secret admirer a secret, but he can’t help it, when he sees a mystery he has to solve it. It doesn’t help that Kaito isn’t exactly subtle. 

He’s made the best of it though, just relaxing in his room while Kaito runs around on a wild goose chase, hopefully deciding to end the charade and just confess. Shuichi would love nothing more than for Kaito to admit he loves him. 

It’s really hard to be patient and relax when waiting for something so major, something he can’t even guarantee. Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe Kaito doesn’t want to confess. 

Shuichi sighs and lays back down, trying to focus on his novel, instead of Kaito. 

He fails miserably. 

...

Kaito is sprinting down the hallway, skidding to stop at Shuichi’s door and thinking _oh shit I’m so late_ by the time Shuichi starts his fifth lap pacing his room and thinking _where is he?_.

“Kaito! Did you find anything?” 

Kaito showing up, even flustered and out of breath from his run, silences the growing crowd of thoughts wondering whether he’d chickened out and wouldn’t show all. Now Shuichi’s mind is holding its breath, poised to investigate as soon as it has more clues. 

Is he nervous? Or just sweating from his sprint? Why did he run? Did he forget about Shuichi? What if-

“I, uh, got... caught up investigating! Yeah, I was going around interrogating witnesses and,” Kaito wracks his brain for details from police documentaries, “collecting handwriting samples! But none of them matched.”

“Do you still have them? Maybe I’ll see something you missed.” Shuichi tries his best to be composed and serious, keeping up the ruse to buy Kaito time. 

“No, I lost the paper. I was running around so much, looking for clues and... yeah. I guess I’m just not as good at this stuff as you.”

Shuichi hums, looking thoughtful and suppressing his smile. “Well, hope is not lost yet. We could do some more investigating, while the night is still young.”

Kaito pales, Shuichi can practically see his mind racing, stuttering, and trying come up with excuses where there are none. Perhaps he’ll need a bit more pushing, but that means Shuichi has to be very confident in his conclusion. 

_I’ve condemned murders, surely this shouldn’t be so hard?_

“Don’t hurt yourself, Kaito. I already know who it is.”

“You do?” He really shouldn’t look so surprised, it’s making Shuichi nervous.

“Of course I do. Who else would write ‘you light up my world like Alpha Canis Majoris lights up the Canis Major constellation’?” Shuichi pauses, smothering a smirk, “Plus, Maki told on you.”

“Maki saw me? But I was so stealthy!”

“She’s an _assassin_.”

“Right,” the gears in Kaito’s head are turning, reviewing his memory of his stealth missions for any sign of Maki lurking in the shadows, as looks down at his fidgeting hands, “what do we do now?”

“I was thinking,” Shuichi looks down too, wishing for the first time in a long time that he had his hat to hide his face, “we could go to this show at the planetarium tomorrow. They’re having some kind of viewing and I bought us tickets because I sort of figured this would happen.”

“Heh. That’s why you’re the best sidekick, Shuichi, always planning ahead.”

“Hmph, I was hoping for a bit more than ‘sidekick’.” 

Kaito turns his head away, unable to look at Shuichi for a second as he runs his hand through his hair. “Like what?”

“How about just... partners?”

“Partners in crime or partners in love?”

Kaito leans over Shuichi with an exaggeratedly flirtatious expression. If he had a rose, he’d be holding it between his teeth. Shuichi just rolls his eyes, failing to hold back a giggle. 

“A little of both.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for Valentine's Day and posted to my tumblr, but I've been going through some of my works and posting them on here as tumblr gradually deteriorates. So take a very out of season fluff piece. 
> 
> Actually my first work in this fandom, I wrote it as a gift for my saimota shipping friend to accompany some of her Valentine's Day fanart on her tumblr (@fancykryptonite) so check that out for the art that inspired this!


End file.
